HUMR 5131 – 2014 – Lec 1-1

Human Rights as an Object of Study

History: – The history (evolution) of the present international HR system– The roots of the present system in the West– The roots of human rights-like ideas in past societies– The roots of HR in modernity (contemporary societal challenges)

Social sciences:– The functioning of the system at different levels: local, national, international– The spread of the system, how to explain variations?– How to promote HR

Philosophy:– How to justify HR; in what ways are HR universal?

(Vs law: can this action be typified as a HR violation?)

HUMR 5131 – 2014 – Lec 1-2

Human Rights as an Object of Study:Anthropology

HR and Anthropology: A troubled relationship:

From ‘cultural relativism’ ...

AAA 1947: Individuals realize their personalities through their culture, hence the respect of individual differences entail a respect for cultural differences: «... only when a statement of the right of men to live in terms of their own traditions is incorporated ... can the next step of defining the rights and duties of human groups as regards each other be set upon the firm foundation of the present-day scientific knowledge of Man.»

To ‘constructing culture’

AAA 1998: «People and groups have a generic right to realize their capacity for culture, and to produce, reproduce and change the conditions and forms of their physical, personal and social existence, so long as such activities do not diminsih the same capacities of others.»

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Human Rights as an Object of Study:Translating Human Rights

UDHR, Art 1, official text, English version:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rightsThey are endowed with reason and conscienceAnd should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood

Tzeltal version:

All human beings, from the moment they are bornAlready possess the respect and well-being of the worldAnd have the same understanding of the heart’s thinkingAnd desire a great, mutual respect

HUMR 5131 – 2014 – Lec 1-4

Human Rights as an Object of Study:Translating Human Rights

Comparing the English and Tzeltal versions of Art 1:

- style (genre): law? sacred claims? holy book? book of counsel?

- concepts: - ‘free and equal’; ‘rights’, ‘reason’, ‘brotherhood’- ‘respect’, ‘well-being of the world’, ‘heart’s thinking’

- institutional framework:- state-based society, state-carrying language - small-scale and/or non-modern community

HUMR 5131 – 2014 – Lec 1-5

Human Rights in AnthropologyWhat is anthropology?

From ...• -the study of bounded, coherent units (‘cultures’), and how everything is

interconnected (holistic approach)• -the exhaustive description (‘ethnography’, lists of traits) of a ‘culture’

To ...• -the study of meaning production: ‘culture’ is ‘shared meanings’

becoming ‘shared’ by being contested• -the study of how ‘culture’ (as a collection of ‘sites’ where

meaning is stabilised) structure social interaction

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Human Rights in AnthropologyDefintions of ‘law’ in anthropology:

• ‘doubly defined rules of social conduct’; first as norms (or social conventions, or custom)then as law: written and state-sanctioned

The study of law in anthropology:

• The study of social (political) control or order: domination, deviation, conformity, as observable in e.g. rituals, courts, mediations, witchcraft, etc. (a Durkheimian approach: the community is there before the individual)

• The study of conflict resolution: how such processes produce legal institutions (the individual is there before the community)

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Human Rights in AnthropologyAn anthropological definition of human rights:

• a set of claims about how particular benefits and/or privileges belong to particular individuals and/or groups at particular sites (times or locations where social life evolves)

Anthropologists often study human rights by regarding them as ‘social practices’ that generate institutionalised behaviour, or ‘culture’, – or the other way round, how imported institutions generate new social practices, for instance by:

• looking at how ‘human rights talk’ mobilises people around universalising claims• investigating how ‘human rights talk’ furthers state penetration • following how ‘human rights talk’ dichotomises political and social struggles by focussing

on actors (their rights and duties) rather than relations and overall balances